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Mark Richt speaks to young football players at Gwen Cherry Park in Liberty City on Monday. (Matt Porter)

MIAMI — As discussed here last weekend, Mark Richt’s main goals for the next phase of his life is to build community, win championships and retire a Hurricane. We’ve seen glimpses of the first goal in his hobnobbing with former players and the manner in which he conducts his recruiting events. Monday, we got another look.

He spoke at Gwen Cherry Park in Liberty City, about 12 miles north of UM. It’s part of an ongoing tour Richt will conduct during his time as Hurricanes coach. Essentially, he wants to visit most or all of the parks in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties. He’ll continue his travels during the season, striving to reach the community in some way every Thursday, when UM has some down time.

Mark Richt speaks to young football players at Gwen Cherry Park in Liberty City on Monday. (Matt Porter)

After arriving after 7 p.m. Monday with Hurricanes junior Chris Herndon and sophomore Mark Walton (who played his youth football at Gwen Cherry), Richt addressed about 150 young players between ages 3-14.

“I’m the new head coach of the University of Miami,” he began. “I played for the Hurricanes way back. Now I’m back at my school as a head coach. It’s a huge blessing for me to be at The U. I plan on being there a good while, because I plan on seeing some of y’all become Hurricanes one day. OK? Would anybody want to be a Hurricane one day?”

Nearly all the kids raised their hands.

“Anybody want to play college football one day?”

If there were any hands not raised, they were then.

“If you want to play college football, I want you to listen,” he said. “There are three things that we look for. As the head coach of Miami, and all college coaches, we’re looking for three things. What do you think is the first thing we’re looking for?”

Several kids tried to anticipate Richt’s answer, but they were thinking too far.

“Not grades, not education,” he said. “I’ll tell you what it is. The first thing I look for is, can you play the game? Can you help us win the ACC, and can you help us win a national championship? That’s the first thing I look for. Can you play. Are you good enough to play.

“What’s the second thing I’m looking for?” he said, answering his own question. “Education. I’m looking for grades. If you don’t have the grades, you cannot go to college. Period. If you don’t have the grades, no matter how good you are, you cannot go. No matter how bad I might want you, I can’t get you in school, into college, unless you take care of business.

“So the best thing you can do is, you start when you’re little. You take school seriously. You study. You be disciplined in that area of your life. And then by the time you get to college, it won’t be anything new to you. All right? So do a good job with your grades.

“So, I look for ability — I look for that talent – I look for grades, what do you think the next thing is I’m looking for?”

Discipline, someone shouted. “That’s a good answer,” Richt said.

“Respect,” he said, responding to another call-out. “All right – I’m going to use this word, I’m sure you’ve heard it – I’m looking for character. What kind of person is this guy? I want somebody who’s a good teammate. I want somebody who’s going to work hard. I want somebody who’s going to tell me the truth when I ask them a question. I want somebody I can trust. I want to be where you can trust me. I want you to know I’m coaching because I love to help young men become grown men. I want them to see them become good husbands and fathers and good citizens of our community. That’s what I want.”

He continued with a little reference to his coaching acumen – this is, after all, about promoting the program as well as helping the community. “I want to see them play in the NFL,” he said, referring to the players he wants to grow into good men.

“When I coached at Georgia the last 15 years, there were more people from Georgia in the NFL than any other school in the nation, besides three,” he said. “We had the fourth-most people in the NFL. You ever see the NFL Network ranking their best players from the highest on down? The school that had the most was Georgia. That’s where I was the last 15 years. And now we’re going to make it happen at Miami.

“The U’s had great players for years and years, and we’re going to continue to do that. But I’m here today, because I want to see y’all do great. If y’all happen to come to The U, that’s great, that’s a blessing. A blessing for you and a blessing for me.”

He then introduced Herndon and Walton, who said a few words about how they got to be college football players. He and the players took a few questions from a crowd. After he called in the players and their coaches for a brief prayer, Richt shook hands, took pictures and chatted with the young players, talked with three reporters who were there.

“We know there’s going to be great, great ballplayers to come out of here, but it’s [about] giving back to them. We want all these guys to be successful. … We’re just trying to love them up.”

When Richt speaks, he said, “some of them kind of halfway got into it. But when they saw them guys in the jerseys? They’re like, ‘You play for Miami?’ Those kids look up to them. They want to be like them. Whether it’s The U, or whether it’s some other college, or even just to make it to high school and do great things. These kids, they look up to them so much. These guys understand that.

“Being at Georgia 15 years, I had guys that were little pee-wees in football camp and we took a camp picture. Then you recruit them and they pull the picture out. There will probably a little bit of that going on here too.”

As the players lined up for their evening football practices, in different age groups across the vast expanse of the park, Richt went on his way.